


prompt: kink: body modification

by alestar



Series: post-Civil War MCU stony bingo [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8146490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alestar/pseuds/alestar
Summary: You believe in the possibility of improvement and not in the virtue of stasis.  That's what makes you a futurist.  You get angry every time you replay the narrative of Steve choosing the past over the present.  The A in Avengers has an arrow pointing forward.
 I realize that this is not at all in the proper spirit of this prompt.





	

 

 

You are looking at a femur.  You have been awake for twenty-six hours.

You are sitting in your lab in front of projected boards of dozens of sketches; radiographs of Rhodey's spine; images of bones, synapses and arteries; and lines and lines of holographic blue scrawl that say things like:

 

HELEN  
tissue regeneration  
toxicity-- testing, 8 mos

 

ASGARD  
message to Jane  
?? mos

 

EXOSKELETON  
structural build, 2 wks  
efferent networking?  
weapons/shielding capability

 

MODULAR PROSTHETIC  
contact sensor, torque sensor (.005-62Nm)  
26 / 17 dof  
hydraulic bladder  
tissue suspension  
myoelectric implant-- socket space??

 

You have code debugging in the background, and in your peripheral vision the shifting digits glitter like starlight.  Rhodey's radiographs glow Tesseract blue.  

You'll have to sleep soon.

If there were an emergency, you could galvanize-- the suit would fold around you and an intravenous solution of vitamins and amphetamines would flood into your system-- but it's been quiet since you flew back from Switzerland.  So you hover in that angelic liminal space that comes at the end of a manic period of work.  You are empty.  All griefs, resentments, worries have been smoothed out with fatigue.  You feel quiet, which is not something you usually feel without alcohol. 

There's a keyboard in your lap, cradled on top of a half-eaten meal bar.  You type a few additional lines of code.  You type _steve,_ and then you delete it.  You type out some Bruce Cockburn lyrics that have been stuck in your head.  You type _captain america_ , and then you delete it. 

It's 4AM in Manhattan.  DUM-E whirs soothingly beside you.  

 

+

 

The best solution for Rhodey's spine is a neural interfacing modular prosthetic, but you keep not mentioning it to him because you know that in order to implant the apparatus Rhodey will need to give up more of his living tissue.  

It's Rhodey's decision to make, and you're working on other options-- and there's no real need to mention it until the designs are finished-- but you find yourself not mentioning it to Pepper, either, or to Vision or to Helen.  Which is a shame, actually, because your plans for a buffering system to moderate afferent feedback is pretty fucking genius.

(You _have_ mentioned your designs to Bruce, but only because he hasn't checked his email in a year and a half, so your messages to him are more like letters to Santa than actual disclosures.  Dear Bruce, I have been good this year, except when I broke the Avengers.  Please bring me knowledge of norepinephrine interactions and a pony.)

You don't have an explanation for your reserve until you wake up at 2PM, blurry with exhaustion, the caffeine in your system still in its half-life, and you are dozing, half-thinking about the fibers that will carry electrical pulses into a motor neuron.  You're thinking that the mechanism that lets you control the electrical feed to the synapses could allow you to delay inhibitory processes, which, with the proper artificial skeletal supports, could facilitate superhuman strength and stamina.  The joints and muscle fibers would need to be appended with polymers.  You come fully awake and realize that you're thinking about Barnes's weaponized arm.

This is the explanation: you are afraid of yourself now that Steve is gone.  

Steve left because he couldn't make compromises, but that's why you needed him to stay.

 

+

 

Seven years ago, when you were dying of palladium poisoning, you created a file.  It's an executable with four levels of security identification and two types of encryption, but it's saved as newsreel.txt.  You called it that because you figured "tony" or "brain" or "tonys-brain" would be more likely to attract attention after your death. The file contains a complete model of your neocortex and plans for a functioning artificial neural server in which your consciousness could be stored.

You haven't opened the file since the Avengers became a thing, but you imagine Steve would have _hated_ it. 

When you were a teenager-- at MIT already but before your parents were killed-- you had vague daydreams of uploading your consciousness to a network; there was never a body associated with the network, in your daydreams, no heroics, no Iron Man. They were juvenile fantasies of being everywhere at once, being in control, being better than your dad, being infinitely fast and infinitely computative. They were about showmanship.

When you were dying they were about buying time: doing more before your time for redemption and your time with Pepper was up. 

Now, you don't know exactly what they're about, but you know there's a grim edge to them. 

You think you could probably do it, now. 

Before, it would have been impossible to power a mechanism that was capable of processing all of the chemical configurations of self-- process them _simultaneously_ \-- plus redundancy fail-safes-- but with arc reactor technology you think you could do it. 

You only let yourself think about it when you're immersed in other projects, like designing Rhodey's prosthesis or amending the Accords or recruiting for the new Avengers.  But in those daydreams ( _fantasies_ is probably the wrong word), you are able to see more, do more, reason more perfectly.  There is never a time when you are waiting for code to debug.  Sometimes Steve shows up in these daydreams, and it's bittersweet. 

There's some vindication when you're able to help him-- when you're able to do the things you both wanted-- but there's always a part where he's standing in an empty room, listening to your voice, looking faintly upwards like he always used to do when he talked to JARVIS.  His face is grief-stricken, thinking about your hands, your eyes, your shoulders.  He is sorry you are gone.

 

+

 

The elevator lab doors slide open, and Rhodey walks in, leaning against his crutches. "Stank," he says in greeting.  He settles carefully into the chair next to you; his braces clank against the metal legs of the chair, and you frown down at them.  

"How's the pressure on your calves?"  You lean forward and tap the hard plastic shell of the brace.  

"Vision sent me down here to check on you," he says.  He grunts, irritated but complacent, when you pick up his ankle and carefully draw it into your lap.  You have never really had a good sense of interpersonal boundaries.  "I know you, I know you've been pulling this melodramatic all-nighter bullshit for thirty years, but Vision doesn't get it."

You use the pencil in your hand to measure the distance between Rhodey's leg and the brace.  "Why didn't he come down, if he's worried about me?"

"He knows he makes you uncomfortable.  He says you're in an emotionally vulnerable state."

"I'm not in an emotionally vulnerable state."  

"Well, you know, he's only four years old," says Rhodey, "he's sensitive."

You turn, frowning, cradling Rhodey's calf, and fish around in the desk drawer for a tape measure.  "Why would Vision make me uncomfortable?"

"You know you get all Dr. Frankenstein with him.  You know, my hubris, my angst, my terrible creation."

"Vision is not my creation."  You bend closer to Rhodey's leg, then pause and look up, scowling.  "And he is not terrible."

"He's kind of your creation, and clearly you've never had his chicken paprikash if you think he's not terrible."

"God, is he still making that?  He is so fucking maudlin."

Rhodey grins.  "And you say he's not your creation."

You shake your head, moving your hand up the brace along the shin.  Rhodey watches you tolerantly while you carefully rotate his ankle. "We could move the struts up and put all the plastic shell in front, and all elastic mesh in back."

"As long as it has jet boots, I'm down for whatever."  You look up, at that, heart clenching, but Rhodey is smirking at you.  He adds, "Or roller skates."

 

+

 

The truth is that Vision does make you uncomfortable.  Why wouldn't he?  Even if he didn't know all kinds of weird stuff about you, probably, he is part JARVIS, part Ultron, part Tesseract.  He represents all the parts of you that you have taught yourself to doubt.

You are Tony Stark, and you stand for sickness, for anxiety, for difficulty, for progress. 

You believe in improvements, which is the same as saying that you believe in violence.  And not Steve's type of violence-- not just force but _real_ violence: real overturning, real bodily change. 

You believe in the possibility of improvement and not in the virtue of stasis.  That's what makes you a futurist.  You get angry every time you replay the narrative of Steve choosing the past over the present.  The _A_ in Avengers has an arrow pointing _forward_.

But all of those oppositions aside, all those arguments aside, Steve always treated Vision as a friend and teammate, no matter what Vision was; Steve never seemed bothered by it.  Steve is capacious enough to extend his fellowship to magic alien robots that Tony Stark helped create. 

You think back to his letter to you, after Siberia: _My faith's in people, I guess._  And then his careful clarification: _Individuals_.

You replay the night after you met Ultron, who was your great prospect for global peace-keeping; the first time Steve ever put his mouth on yours.  You remember the weight of Steve's disappointment, of his fucking _aphorisms._

But you remember, too, the warmth of his body next to you in Clint's guest bed. You remember the gentleness and the solemnity of his face, inches from yours, when he slipped his fingers into the sleeve of your t-shirt, holding your arm, and said, "Are you okay?"

 

+

 

Rhodey texts you that dinner is ready, and on a whim you decide not to ignore it. 

You take the elevator up to the ground floor and then wander over to the northeast sector-- to the guest suite which never got much play, before, because it was far away from the gym and the hangar, and too small for the whole team, but which is perfect for three bachelors avoiding dark thoughts. 

When you enter the common area, Rhodey and Vision are sitting opposite each other over a chessboard that's set up on the coffee table, and Rhodey's leaned over what looks like a heaping plate of tomato sauce and cheese. 

Vision looks up from the chessboard.  

"Jim has made lasagna." 

Rhodey points at his place with his fork, mouth full, nodding.  The whole room smells like garlic bread. 

You throw your tablet onto the arm of the sofa.  "Show off."  You grab yourself a plate from the kitchen area then sit down next to Vision, plate cradled in your hand.  "So who's winning?"

Rhodey says, "Come on, man, you know Vision always wins."

"Jim has deployed Grob's Attack," Vision says supportively.

You nod, scooping lasagna into your mouth.  It feels like forever since you had food that wasn't marketed entirely for its concentration of nutrients.  The low tones of tomato are threaded through with basil, and the garlic bread is crunchy but in some places soft with butter.  It makes you miss red wine, but that's an ache you barely feel anymore.  You watch Rhodey and Vision play, leaned back on the sofa. You do not know shit about chess.

After Vision wins, you put down your plate and say, "Okay, okay, enough of stuff that doesn't involve me."  

You pick up your tablet and swipe at the design specs for the neural interfacing modular prosthetic.  You aren't resolved, yet, you don't know how you feel, but it may be that resolve in isolation is not ideal, and anyway, your response to conflict has always been more talking, more motion, more rock and roll.  FRIDAY projects an empty blue frame into the open air.

"You guys want to see something cool?" you ask, grinning.

Rhodey says, "Yeah, but are you gonna finish that?"  He's already reaching for your abandoned plate, and you swat at his hand, tapping one-handed at your tablet.  Vision says placidly, "Yes, I want to see something cool."

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> listen, I definitely read casually up on quantum computing for this fic, which defeats the spirit of challenge drabbles, but whatever, and then I did not actually use any of it. I feel like kind of a pretentious asshole saying this, but there is some beautiful metaphor about the transition from binary computing (a system that process zeros or ones) to quantum computing (a system that processes zero, one, the infinite values between zero and one, or zero and one at the same time) as it relates to diversity and oppositional stances, and I need someone who actually understands computing please to write about it. For Steve/Tony purposes, I mean. I do not care about other forms of progress


End file.
